BUSINESS DOCUMENT GUIDE

VOLUME 1: Number 1

This report identifies Printing Time and Cost Savings are On Your Side with Fiery VUE
the benefits of Until recently, creating brochures, booklets, and other professionally finished documents
creating professional was the domain of print shops or graphic design professionals. Historically, integrating
finished documents various file formats into one of these documents has been somewhat complicated and
using EFIs Fiery VUE, time-consuming for the average office worker. Consider the steps involved in many
a new visual print office environments today.
application and The user creates their document, importing the various components of the docu-
includes the results of ment in different file formats such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, etc.
exclusive BERTL testing If theyre responsible for the finished product, they then output and add the finish-
that illustrate the time ing touches (hole punch, staple, etc.) through the print driver on a multifunctional
and cost savings device. Because workers typically cant see how the finished document will actu-
associated with Fiery ally look until they click print, theres often some trial and error involved in the form
VUE compared to of wasted time and wasted prints and consumables until they are satisfied with the
other vendors printer finished results.
drivers. Or, if they opt to send their documents to a Corporate Reprographics Department
(CRD) or outsource them to their local printer, they have to deliver separate files,
describing how they want that finished document to look and then wait until the
project is done. Add to that the costs associated with outsourcing the work or hav-
ing it billed internally by a CRD. The bottom line, its an added cost.

These limitations for creating finished professional-looking documents no longer exist

with Fiery VUE, an application created by EFI that lets users preview their documents so
that they can see beforehand exactly what the finished document will look like when it
comes out of the printer, right down to the positioning of the staple on the finished piece.
With Fiery VUE, users can view their documents in three dimensions and turn pages on
the screen just as if it was a hard-copy document.

In order to use Fiery VUE, however, the user must have an EFI controller attached to their
output device. In many office environements, this is a logical option.

Benefits of Fiery VUE

Any office worker responsible for creating professional-looking documents can benefit
from Fiery VUE, but the biggest benefits will be reaped by those in the sales, marketing,
finance, legal, HR, and training departments. These benefits include:
Faster turnaround time when creating a finished document.
Reduced waste since documents can be previewed prior to printing and by using
the Green Books template.
Cost savings by being able to create documents in-house, quickly and efficiently.
The ability to create better-looking documents from a desktop.
Compatiblility with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Adobe Acrobat appli-
cations.
The ability for Fiery VUE to be launched as a standalone application or from within
Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007.
Files can be imported directly into the Fiery VUE application, eliminating the need
to open files prior to launching Fiery VUE.

Copyright 2010 BERTL, Inc |Business Equipment Research and Test Laboratories April 2010
All Rights Reserved. The license under which this document is made available and applicable law prohibit any reproduction or further transmission of any portion of this document. This document may only be
viewed electronically through the www.BERTL.com Web site and may not be stored in electronic or hard copy format. Any reproduction of trademarks is strictly prohibited. BERTL accepts no responsibility for any Pag e|1
inaccuracies or omissions contained in this document.
 SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS REPORT

Finishing for Dummies How Fiery VUE Works

One of the biggest advantages that BERTL has witnessed Lets look at how Fiery VUE can be used to create a fin-
in its tests of Fiery VUE is that the user does not need to ished PowerPoint document.
know how to use drivers or how to access the finishing ca-
pabilities on the output device. Thats because Fiery VUE The user has the choice to select Quick Print, a one-click
is integrated with Microsoft Office and functions like a printing that takes them to defaults or they can select
visual print driver, allowing users to see what theyre going Print, which has a dialog box where they can choose the
to print before they click on the print button and making number of copies to be printed. This is traditional Power-
the final finishing stages of document creation more intu- Point printing and should be familiar to most users.
itive. Also Fiery VUE uses terms office workers are familiar
with, such as print on both sides rather than duplex. The Fiery VUE interface has a standard look and feel with
drop-down menus across the topsomething most office
Most other printing solutions on the market are driver based users should be comfortable with. Along the right side of
and users need to have some knowledge of how to work the page are icons. Thats where the visual application
with those drivers to create a finished document. This is not comes in and is what puts the view in Fiery VUE. The user
the case with Fiery VUE. Theres no need for users to open can toggle through their pages and see how things look
files in their native application and save them as PDFs, then and make decisions about what they want to do with their
bring all the various components together and save the document. This is whats called a dynamic roller, allowing
work as a new document. With Fiery VUE, individual docu- users to preview how Fiery VUE will print their document,
ment components can be imported in their native file for- even though the document is not changed until the user
mats then formatted, previewed, and printed. Fiery VUEs makes their final selection.
interface guides users through document layout and pro-
duction. Multiple files can be combined in a single docu- Fiery VUE keeps things simple and only shows the options
ment and finishing options such as stapling, binding, and available to the user on the specific device they want to
hole punch selected by the user and the finished docu- print their document on. For example, if hole punching isnt
ment previewed on screen in 2D or 3D prior to printing. The available on a particular device, they will not see that
result is a professional-looking finished document thats option on their Fiery VUE screen.
created in-house using both new and existing files.
Through Fiery VUE users can change orientation, rotation,
change black and white to color and vice versa, toggle
back and forth, address different types of bookletssta-
pled or ring boundand select different types of stapling.
Fiery VUE even shows the user where the staple is located
on the document so they can see whether or not the
location of the staple will affect the readability of that doc-
ument. If a user selects Top Staple, Fiery VUE knows it is
calendar mode and then turns every page on screen,
showing the user how it will print as a finished document.
The user experiences all of this in a three-dimensional visual
user interface.

Users can also go into Thumbnail view and manipulate

documents and make changes there as well. For exam-
ple, they can make an individual page or pages black
and white rather than color or print two pages per sheet.
This view also allows them to import files such as an Excel
A three-dimensional representation of a ringbound document in
spreadsheet, PDF brochure, or a Word file and then ma-
Fiery VUE. nipulate those files in Thumbnail mode. These files can
also be combined in one document by dragging and
dropping individual pages. Once they have the document

Copyright 2010 BERTL, Inc |Business Equipment Research and Test Laboratories April 2010
All Rights Reserved. The license under which this document is made available and applicable law prohibit any reproduction or further transmission of any portion of this document. This document may only be
Page|2 viewed electronically through the www.BERTL.com Web site and may not be stored in electronic or hard copy format. Any reproduction of trademarks is strictly prohibited. BERTL accepts no responsibility for any
inaccuracies or omissions contained in this document.
 SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS REPORT

assembled, the user can toggle through, see what they

created, add tabs or section starts, then turn it into a book-
let by choosing staple. It is then automatically printed on
11 x 17 inch paper, folded, and stapled.

Among the professionally finished documents that can be

created using Fiery VUE are:
Presentations
Brochures
Booklets
Newsletters
Collateral
Reports
Training Materials
Proposals

Talking About Templates Using Fiery VUEs Green Books feature, users can reduce paper
One of the biggest advantages that BERTL has found Fiery consumption by up to 85 percent.
VUE has over traditional print drivers is that it gives users the
option of printing their document or saving it as a tem- carbon footprint and use less paper. For a PowerPoint pres-
plate. A selection of templates provided by EFI expedites entation with 15 individual slides, thats 15 sheets of paper
the document creation process. For example, users can per handout plus the time it takes to print those sheets. By
start with one of the pre-existing templates or create their choosing Fiery VUEs Full Size Green Book template, a user
own custom template that can be used again and again. can output that presentation at full size in duplex mode
What EFI has discovered in focus groups with end users is and save 50 percent of the paper. Or they can select the
that a half dozen different templates can accomodate Half Size Green Book template and reduce it to 8 x 11
about 80 percent of most print jobs. In BERTLs view, these booklet and save 75 percent or create a Mini Green Book
templates give Fiery VUE a big edge when going head to that prints the PowerPoint presentation professionally and
head with a traditional print driver. legibly at two slides per sheet with its own cover with an 85
percent reduction in paper as compared to printing 15
Going Green slides on single-sided 8 x 11 paper.
BERTL believes that the timing is right for a product like Fiery
VUE largely because of the current focus on waste reduc- This is another example of how Fiery VUE helps users man-
tion initiatives taking place in many organizations while at age their printed output. Not only does it provide users with
the same time, mission-critical documents are growing in the ability to produce high-value documents quickly and
volume. efficiently, it reduces paper waste.

For organizations looking to be green, Fiery VUEs Green BERTLs Keystroke Test
Books function offers them that capability. Three pre- BERTL tested Fiery VUE against drivers from five leading MFP
formatted templates (full, half, mini) are included in Fiery vendors. The drivers were compared to see how many
VUE, enabling users to create and design a finished book- clicks it would take to execute the same features as in Fiery
let with a minimal number of mouse clicks. With Green VUE. The results of this independent testing reveals that it
Books, a user can reduce paper usage by up to 85 per- takes fewer keystrokes in Fiery VUE to perform key finishing
cent compared to a standard PowerPoint presentation by options such as staple, punch, and creating booklets as
combining pages with additional cost savings achieved well as printing on both sides of a page, changing the ori-
by eliminating unnecessary printouts. entation of a page from portrait to landscape, and rotat-
ing the page compared to most print drivers. Indeed,
Consider that many documents created in an office are many of these tasks can be accomplished in just four key-
printed on one page per sheet full size up. Thats a waste strokes using Fiery VUE compared to four to ten keystrokes
of paper, especially for a company looking to reduce its using drivers associated with OEMs output hardware.

Copyright 2010 BERTL, Inc |Business Equipment Research and Test Laboratories April 2010
All Rights Reserved. The license under which this document is made available and applicable law prohibit any reproduction or further transmission of any portion of this document. This document may only be
viewed electronically through the www.BERTL.com Web site and may not be stored in electronic or hard copy format. Any reproduction of trademarks is strictly prohibited. BERTL accepts no responsibility for any Pag e|3
inaccuracies or omissions contained in this document.
 SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS REPORT

The way competitive drivers are organized, it took more What the chart doesnt factor in, however, and is an ad-
clicks to find a specific feature, such as Staple, or Punch. vantage of the Fiery VUE Template option, is the ability of
Once again, thats the inherent benefit of Fiery VUE in that users to perform additional tasks such as mix attributes in a
the feature that the user wants can be selected with fewer document, change slides in a PowerPoint presentation, for
clicks. For example, when you drag your mouse over a example, to color, and print on two sides and all the other
particular feature, a menu pops up that shows you the func- tasks mentioned earlier in the section on Fiery VUE benefits.
tions you can enable. Those require less clicks as opposed to Those tasks require additional steps intially, but once a tem-
the traditional driver where you have to click on each tab. plate is created, they can all be done via one click. Thats
the value add of Fiery VUE because these same tasks cant
be accomplished as easily and efficiently using other
Fiery Fiery VUE Other Printer Drivers
printer drivers.
Features VUE w/Template (PS & PCL & PCL6)
BERTL also evaluated the time it took to find certain fea-
Punch
tures in other drivers compared to Fiery VUE. While negli-
None 4 1 4 to 8
gible, it takes the average user 3-4 more seconds to find
2 Left, 2 Top 4 1 4 to 8
a comparable feature on a competitive print driver. This
3 Left, 3 Top 4 1 4 to 8
may not seem like a lot of time, but for light-production
4 Left, 4 Top 4 1 4 to 8
environments that create finished documents on a regu-
Staple lar basis, this could save some organizations dozens of
None, Corner, Left, Top 4 1 4 to 7 hours a year.
Booklet
The Bottom Line
None 4 1 4 to 8
Ultimately what Fiery VUE does is take most of the guess
Ring Bound 4 1 4 to 8
work out of creating professional looking finished docu-
Stapled, Stapled Half Size 4 1 4 to 8
ments by simplifying the process and giving the user
Pages Per Sheet greater control in the process than theyve ever had be-
1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 16 4 1 4 to 6 fore. With that control comes time and cost savings, and
for those organizations looking to shrink their carbon foot-
Print on Both Sides print, an opportunity to do that too.
Disabled 4 1 4 to 7
Flip Pages Left 4 1 4 to 7
Rotation
0, 90, 180, - 90 Degrees 4 1 4 to 7
Orientation
Portrait 4 1 4 to 10
Landscape 4 1 4 to 10

Test results revealed that Fiery VUE required fewer clicks

to perform various finishing functions such as Layout, Ori-
entation, Rotation, Punch, Staple, Booklet and Binding.
Lets look at how Fiery VUE compares to other drivers
using PS and PCL. Competitive drivers using PostScript re-
quired four, five, six, seven and eight clicks to perform the
same finishing job. Competitive drivers using PCL required
four, five, six, seven and eight clicks to perform the same
finishing job.

Copyright 2010 BERTL, Inc |Business Equipment Research and Test Laboratories April 2010
All Rights Reserved. The license under which this document is made available and applicable law prohibit any reproduction or further transmission of any portion of this document. This document may only be
Page|4 viewed electronically through the www.BERTL.com Web site and may not be stored in electronic or hard copy format. Any reproduction of trademarks is strictly prohibited. BERTL accepts no responsibility for any
inaccuracies or omissions contained in this document.